(Reuters) - NATO leaders will declare their determination on Wednesday to prevail over Taliban insurgents and bring peace to Afghanistan while offering only small concessions in troop levels and flexibility, reports Trend.
Contributing to peace and stability in Afghanistan is a just cause vital to our collective security and our shared values," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told NATO leaders at Wednesday's closing session of a summit in Riga.
"Together with other international actors, we will stand with the Afghan people for the long term to help them build a democratic country free from terror and drugs," he said.
Many of NATO's 26 member nations on Tuesday expressed hope the most dangerous ground mission in the military alliance's 57-year history could yet succeed but several major nations pledged additional help only in cases of emergency.
A NATO spokesman said three countries had committed more troops and that a majority had agreed to ease restrictions on where and how their forces could fight in Afghanistan.
He declined to name the three countries, but said they were in addition to Canada, Denmark and the Czech Republic, which have already made public pledges to increase troop levels.
France, Germany, Italy and Spain, who sparked a row by refusing calls in September to send troops to the Taliban's southern Afghan heartland, promised to send help to trouble zones outside their areas but only in emergencies.
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said Italy's position on troop locations and numbers had not changed and it would only move forces "in extremis." Germany, France and Spain expressed the same position, he said.
French officials said France could "on a case-by-case basis and on request" send troops outside their zone if necessary.
Madrid's pledge was yet more guarded, with a Spanish official saying Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had offered use of Spanish helicopters in exceptional circumstances to help evacuate wounded NATO solders, and not for combat.
France has a contingent in the capital Kabul and Spanish troops operate in the relatively calm west.
The most urgent need is in southern Afghanistan, where British, Dutch and Canadians have suffered heavy casualties.
A Canadian official said Canada had pledged 1,000 more troops without geographical or other restrictions.
The official said Canada, which has lost 44 soldiers in the conflict including two this week, would like to see all countries in Afghanistan drop such "bureaucratic restrictions."
Before the summit began, President George W. Bush said success in Afghanistan could only come if member countries accept "difficult assignments."
While Afghanistan dominated the summit's opening session on Tuesday, Wednesday's talks were ranging over NATO enlargement, energy security, political guidelines for the military and modernization.
De Hoop Scheffer said the NATO leaders would declare a new 25,000-strong force aimed at responding quickly to crises around the world to be fully operational.
"Making our forces more modern needs investment. Defense cannot be assured on the cheap," he added.
The organization expects to issue more invitations to candidate countries to join at its next summit in 2008.
The leaders will differentiate subtly among the three current aspirants in NATO's Membership Action Plan -- Croatia, seen as best prepared, Macedonia and Albania.
Diplomats said there was a chance NATO might after all invite Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro to take the first step toward membership by joining its Partnership for Peace.
NATO had been reluctant because Serbia and Bosnia are not fully cooperating with the U.N. war crimes tribunal by arresting and handing over top former Bosnian Serb leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
But the diplomats said the United States had had a late change of heart, apparently swayed by a letter from reformist Serbian President Boris Tadic appealing to NATO to help the democrats in his country.
"We are not there yet, but it looks like all three could make it," one senior NATO diplomat said.